Today we also have author Michael Williams here to talk about his book Vine: An Urban Legend! :)

Hi Michael! Would you tell us a little bit
about yourself?

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and through good
luck and a roundabout journey through New England, New York, Wisconsin, Britain and Ireland, have ended up
less than thirty miles from where I began.
Over the past 25 years, I have written a number of strange novels, from
the early Weasel’s Luck and Galen Beknighted in the best-selling
DRAGONLANCE series to the more recent lyrical and experimental Arcady, singled out for praise by Locus
and Asimov’s magazines. Trajan’s Arch (2010) was my eleventh
novel, the first published with Blackwyrm Press, and on this blog tour I am
promoting my newest book, Vine: An Urban
Legend.

I am an
Assistant Professor in Humanities at the University of Louisville, where I
focus on European Romanticism and the 19th century, Modernism (especially the
Modern Fantastic), and early 20th century film.
I am married, and have two grown sons.

Can you tell us a little bit about your book Vine: An Urban Legend?

Vine : An Urban Legend is a new version of Euripides’ Bacchae set in a
small Midwestern city. When amateur
stage director Stephen Thorne decides to stage a controversial Greek tragedy in
order to ruffle the feathers in his conservative town, he has no idea that the
whole process will stir up dark and ancient forces.

Vine is
what I call a choral novel. Parts of it
are narrated traditionally, but at points in the book, groups of characters
comment on what’s going on, reflect on larger issues, and fuss and wrangle with
each other. It’s a tragedy, all right,
but it has funny moments and should appeal to adult readers (YA it’s not!).

What was the inspiration for this novel?

I’ve always wanted to write
a Greek tragedy. It’s a form of story
that is political, religious, mythic, and dramatic at the same time, which is a
tall order to begin with. It also deals
with grim and large issues poetically, which is something dear to my
temperament. Unfortunately, as I have
said, I don’t know Greek and was born 2500 years too late. Having mulled this cosmic disadvantage, I was
inspired to steal fire: to try to write a Greek tragedy regardless of the
handicap.

Which came first for you, the characters or the plot?

Oddly enough, it was plot
this time. Usually my books begin with

characters. I think especially of Weasel’s Luck and Trajan’s Arch, where I had to know my people before I could drop
them into a story. But the appeal of writing a Greek tragedy was also the
stark, stripped plotlines that almost all of the great plays have. The problem is, I realized early on that I
could never ever match Sophocles or Euripides for that lean, mythic plotting. So I decided to steal from one of them—to rework
Euripides’ plot in a modern setting.
Once that decision was made, the landscape needed to be populated by
comparable characters to those in the original cast. It sounds easy, but it was real
alligator-wrestling.

Do you think you may ever go into another genre?

I do all the time. I cross
genres like a smuggler crosses borders, blending elements from one with those
from another. It’s the most fun a genre
writer can have: conventions and situations and characters and tropes banging
against one another, creating tensions and entirely new elements, and sometimes
entirely new genres. My novel Arcady was very early Steampunk, for example, not because I
was attuned to other people doing it, because it occurred to me that mixing
English Romantic poetry and 19th century technology with traditional
quest fantasy might be a fun thing to try.

Can you tell us a few do’s and don’ts for aspiring
authors?

Set a regular time to write,
where each day you put in at least 90 minutes toward your work. Keep the time regular. Yes, you can.
Saying you can’t is a form of giving up, or at least saying your writing
isn’t high priority. If it isn’t high priority,
it doesn’t make you a bad person, but it means your writing will read that way.

Don’t do the same thing every
time out. Set yourself storytelling
goals as well as variations in your subject matter, so that you’re constantly
pushing yourself wider and farther.
There are lots of romantic reasons you want to do this—to grow and
develop as an artist is one of them. But
the most important thing is to keep from being bored.

Take the manuscript through
one more editorial passage than you think it needs. Yes, the whole thing. Check for everything from large movements in
the story through consistency down to spelling and punctuation. Push it one draft further—it’s worth it.

Don’t rush to publish. Rush to learn your craft.

Is there anything you’d like to say to your fans?

Thanks for putting up with me for twenty-five years. I know some of you like some of my work better than the rest of it, but console yourself that other people like the rest of my work better than the parts you like. Confused by that sentence? I’m not. I guess I win.

Is there a genre that you love to read, and would
like to write, but just can not?

Science fiction. I simply don’t have the science.

Random Quickies!

Vampires or Werewolves?

Vampires, as long as they
are the menacing Stoker or Murnau vampires.
By the time we’re to Lugosi or Lee or Oldman, we’re already losing the
edge. Twilight is, I fear, something I
can’t buy into.

Cats or dogs?

Whichever I happen to own at
the time. Right now we have four cats,
all female, all self-absorbed. They
create more drama than backstage at a drag show.

Swimming pool or ocean/lake?

The pool! Please, the pool! There’s chlorine against the pollutants, no
floating waste or carnivorous elements.

TV Shows or Movies?

Movies. You can get good
independent, non-commercial films. I
don’t see that happening as much in television.

Dark Chocolate or Milk Chocolate?

Dark. My wife says it’s better for me, so it’s what
we get. I like it better. Really. Honest. I do, honey.

Vine: An Urban Legend by Michael Williams
Genre: Mythic Fiction

192
pages

Amateur
theatre director Stephen Thorne plots a sensational production of a Greek
tragedy in order to ruffle feathers in the small city where he lives.
Accompanied by an eccentric and fly-by-night cast and crew, he prepares for
opening night, unaware that as he unleashes the play, he has drawn the
attention of ancient and powerful forces.

Michael
Williams’ Vine weds Greek Tragedy and urban legend with dangerous intoxication,
as the drama rushes to its dark and inevitable conclusion.

Michael Williams
was born in Louisville, Kentucky. Much of his childhood was spent in the south
central part of the state, amid red dirt, tobacco farms, and murky legends of
Confederate guerillas. He has spent a dozen years in various parts of the
world, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, with stopovers in Ireland and England, and emerged from the experience surprisingly
unscathed.

Upon returning to
the Ohio RiverValley, he has published a series of novels of increasing oddness,combinations
of what he characterizes as “gothic/historical fiction/fantasy/sf/redneck
magical realism” beginning with Weasel’s Luck (1988) and Galen Beknighted
(1990), the critically acclaimed Arcady (1996) and
Allamanda (1997), and, most recently, Trajan’s Arch (2010). His new novel Vine
will be released this summer.

He lives in Corydon, Indiana with his wife, Rhonda, and a clowder of cats.

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